Construction of a metro route underway in HCM City. (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Ho Chi Minh City has asked theGovernment for an additional 800 million USD for the metro No 2 line from Ben Thanh to Tham Luong to accommodate design changes and permission to delaycompletion until 2024.
In 2010 the project was approved at a costof 1.374 billion USD with basic design by the Transportation Construction andInvestment Consultancy Joint Stock Company.
In 2012, after construction began, theinvestor brought in an international consultancy consortium led by a Germanfirm to make a detailed design.
The latter identified many errors andrectified them.
Further increasing cost was due to the factthat inflation was built into the project only for until 2016, leading to anoverrun since it has been delayed.
Earlier the metro No 1 route from Ben Thanh to Suoi Tien saw its cost rise by 87 percent over the initial estimate to 47trillion VND (2.1 billion USD) for exactly the same reason: inexperience of the localcompany in designing metro systems.
The cost of the first stage of the No 5line from Bay Hien intersection to Saigon Bridge also increased by 87 percentto 1.56 billion EUR (1.85 billion USD) after international consultancies enteredthe scene.
Dr Huynh The Du, lecturer at FullbrightUniversity, told Thanh Nien (Youth) newspaper that the city should review theentire metro project.
Vietnam should learn from the experience of the Republic of Korea and China in building metro systems, he said. In the beginning theyrelied on international know-how and funding, but later domestic companies tookover completely, he said.
“However, Vietnam now has multiple foreigninvestors, limited funds and no policies to encourage technology transfer.” - VNA
VNA
